When it gets hot, you have to look for shelter. Every country usually has its own shelters; you just need to know how to find them and dive in headfirst, so that your head gets there first and the rest of the body can stay a little bit outside if necessary. After all, the heat mostly gets to your head, and that's the first thing you need to take care of... besides, it's the head that does the thinking anyway...

In Armenia, fortunately, there is space for the entire body. Lake Sevan is one of these places, situated at a maximum altitude of 1,900 meters. When you arrive in winter, you have to be very careful, or you risk flying away like an ownerless umbrella. In summer, however, it is different: you can dive right in and stay grounded without any particular effort.

Around the lake there are villages; coming closer, there are shores; on the shores, there is sand or pebbles. It depends on where you go, on which bank. The mountains serve as a backdrop because they have always been there for years; they went there and stayed because they were looking for coolness, ultimately surrounding the lake all around like a group of hikers around a campfire. To look at, they keep you company, appearing as particularly lively, animated mountains. You can admire them through a window frame, through the old scrap iron abandoned on the shore, or from the changing cabins. From the changing cabins, they produce an even more ancient impression, because inside you usually undress, making you feel as if you were in prehistoric times: the connection is greater.

Thank goodness for Lake Sevan. How many Armenians give thanks for this immense, refreshing puddle—one of the largest high-altitude alpine freshwater lakes in the world.

One of the beaches of Sevan.

Around Lake Sevan, you also find strange, futuristic things just a few steps away from old churches. Like the Writers' House, which looks like a mess hall ripped right off a spaceship, the sole surviving block from the crash of some huge, colossal starship. You walk in and see a heavy-set older lady with a tough, bored, distinctly Soviet look, sprawled across an old armchair and announcing customers as if she already knew them and everything about them. In the end, tourists are all the same: they look for the same things, linger over the exact same picture of Sartre by the entrance, take photos in the dining room, step out onto the balcony, relax to the point of passing out, retake the photo in the dining room because they noticed another angle from the balcony, and order a coffee. She knows it, and I feel right at home with that. I don't care for pleasantries. Anyway, if you want to get a coffee, ask to sit on the balcony. The view is well worth the seat. And don't hang around the dining room taking useless, rubbish photos; someone will come and ask you to move, and rightly so. Besides, you won't do a damn thing with those photos anyway. Enjoy the view in silence.

The Writers' House. In the background, Sevanavank Monastery.

View from the balcony of the Writers' House.

A boat waiting for customers

Children are playing on a merry-go-round next to a beach cabin.

Boats cross Lake Sevan.

I like this photo because the handrail makes me imagine the wave, which I don't see in the water... it gives me the impression of something potentially there...

There are many spots where you have everything you need to organize a barbecue.

Whenever Armenians see steaming meat, they always dance. If you smell roast meat nearby, someone is dancing on a full stomach.